On the finish of “Squid Recreation” Season 1, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) makes a fateful resolution. Whereas boarding a flight to go to his daughter in the US, he picks up the cellphone and calls the perpetrators of the deadly video games he received. He says that he’s going to seek out them and finish the video games as soon as and for all.
Gi-hun endures unspeakable horror in Season 1, however that finale depicts him a 12 months after the Video games ended, his carefree and optimistic persona misplaced within the calcified trauma of his trials. Forward of the second season’s Netflix premiere, showrunner Hwang Dong-hyuk advised IndieWire that the scene was meant to be a microcosm of the character’s inner shift, together with the truth that he turns round and goes again inside.
“Gi-hun offers up a chance to go see his daughter. He voluntarily offers that up to be able to get his revenge, and that signifies that he was so consumed by this willpower to get revenge that he was prepared to surrender one thing that was essentially the most treasured factor to him in his life,” Hwang advised IndieWire by means of a translator. “In Season 2, I needed him to appear as if he was simply fully consumed by that willpower, virtually to the purpose of nearing madness.”
Hwang and Lee mentioned the shift extensively, together with the actor’s weight reduction and bodily transformation. “I actually needed him to indicate that have and course of that Gi-hun would have gone by means of… whether or not it was the best way his look is or the best way he spoke, his tone and method, or his actions, I needed him to come back throughout as convincing as attainable in that character change,” Hwang stated.
It’s additionally evident in Lee’s efficiency; even within the Season 2 trailers, Gi-hun is stoic and decided (look no additional than these contrasting mug photographs from his two sport orientations), now again contained in the video games as a part of a better mission to finish them. On the identical time, Hwang stated that he needed to protect what followers liked about Gi-hun in Season 1 and so as to add reminders of who he was earlier than.
“If Season 1 was the story of [how] Gi-hun, who was very naive and clumsy and childlike at occasions, received into this brutal and excessive sport and survives in his personal method, Season 2 is about this modified man who’s traumatized after these experiences,” Hwang elaborated. “It did virtually really feel like a special present, a minimum of of a special colour by way of the character and in addition the character’s actions.”
But when there are kernels of the previous Gi-hun in there, Season 2 would possibly deliver them to the floor. The trailers revealed the arrival of a brand new however acquainted participant: Gi-hun’s previous buddy Jung-bae, who he gambled and drank with earlier than the video games modified his life.
“Viewers could have gotten the trace that he’s additionally somebody who’s beneath plenty of financial stress,” Hwang stated about bringing the character again. “Gi-hun is much more severe and extra centered and pushed — nonetheless, by having this buddy by his facet, I believed that that might assist him or assist us present extra of the previous Gi-hun to the viewers, and since he’s in there combating in opposition to and going in opposition to this mission, not by himself, however with this buddy of his that he’s identified for a very long time. By having him within the video games, I believed that I may deliver extra humanistic sides of Gi-hun to the present.”
Even with a reminder of his previous life within the video games with him, Gi-hun’s mission is clearer than ever — as is the item of his anger. The trailers additionally tease the return of Entrance Man (Lee Byung-hun), who permits Gi-hun to reenter the sport and observes him with the opposite gamers. Season 1 revealed that the Entrance Man was as soon as a participant within the Video games himself, however how he received to the place he’s stays a thriller. With the 2 former winners dealing with off, IndieWire requested Hwang what the Entrance Man thinks of Gi-hun at this second — and the director replied instantly in English: “Jealous.”
“Once you take a look at it from a Darth Vader versus Luke Skywalker perspective, the Entrance Man has fully crossed over to the darkish facet,” he elaborated by means of his translator. “To see Gi-hun, who nonetheless believes within the goodness of individuals, who remains to be within the mild — whereas on the identical time, he needs to win within the battle in opposition to him as a result of Gi-hun nonetheless holds pricey to his coronary heart one thing that [Front Man] has already misplaced fully, I really feel like he would really feel a way of jealousy towards him.”
“Squid Recreation 2” premieres December 26 on Netflix.